Chapter I: Psychology of the Jacobin Leaders (2)

General laughter; Robespierre keeps silent and bleeds internally: two or three such mishaps nettle such a man from head to foot. It is not that his stupid remarks seem silly to him; no pedant taken in the act and hissed would avow that he deserved such treatment; on the contrary, he is content to have spoken as becomes a philosophic and moral legislator, and so much the worse for the narrow minds and corrupt hearts unable to comprehend him.--Thrown back upon himself, his wounded vanity seeks inward nourishment and takes what it can find in the sterile uniformity of his bourgeois moderation. Robespierre, unlike Danton, has no cravings. He is sober; he is not tormented by his senses; if he gives way to them, it is only no further than he can help, and with a bad grace. In the rue Saintonge in Paris, "for seven months," says his secretary,[31105] "I knew of but one woman that he kept company with, and he did not treat her very well. .. very often he would not let her enter his room": when busy, he must not be disturbed. He is naturally steady, hard-working, studious and fond of seclusion, at college a model pupil, at home in his province an attentive advocate, a punctual deputy in the Assembly, everywhere free of temptation and incapable of going astray.--"Irreproachable" is the word which from early youth an inward voice constantly repeats to him in low tones to console him for obscurity and patience. Thus has he ever been, is now, and ever will be; he says this to himself, tells others so, and on this foundation, all of a piece, he builds up his character. He is not, like Desmoulins, to be seduced by dinners, like Barnave, by flattery, like Mirabeau and Danton, by money, like the Girondists, by the insinuating charm of ancient politeness and select society, like the Dantonists, by the bait of joviality and unbounded license--he is the incorruptible. He is not to be deterred or diverted, like the Feuillants, Girondists, and Dantonists, like statesmen or specialists, by considerations of a lower order, by regard for interests or respect for acquired positions, by the danger of undertaking too much at once, by the necessity of not disorganizing the service and of giving play to human passions, motives of utility and opportunity: he is the uncompromising champion of the right.[31106] "Alone, or nearly alone, I do not allow myself to be corrupted; alone or nearly alone, I do not compromise justice; which two merits I possess in the highest degree. A few others may live correctly, but they oppose or betray principles; a few others profess to have principles, but they do not live correctly. No one else leads so pure a life or is so loyal to principles; no one else joins to so fervent a worship of truth so strict a practice of virtue: I am the unique."--What can be more agreeable than this mute soliloquy? From the very first day it can be heard toned down in Robespierre's address to the Third-Estate of Arras;[31107] the last day it is spoken aloud in his great speech in the Convention;[31108] during the interval, it crops out and shines through all his compositions, harangues, or reports, in exordiums, parentheses and perorations, permeating every sentence like the drone of a bag-pipe.[31109]--Through the delight he takes in this he can listen to nothing else, and it is just here that the outward echoes supervene and sustain with their accompaniment the inward cantata which he sings to his own glory. Towards the end of the Constituent Assembly, through the withdrawal or the elimination of every man at all able or competent, he becomes one of the conspicuous tenors on the political stage, while in the Jacobin Club he is decidedly the tenor most in vogue.--"Unique competitor of the Roman Fabricius," writes the branch club at Marseilles to him; "immortal defender of popular rights," says the Jacobin crew of Bourges.[31110] One of two portraits of him in the exhibition of 1791 bears the inscription: "The Incorruptible." At the Moliere Theatre a drama of the day represents him as launching the thunderbolts of his logic and virtue at Rohan and Condé. On his way, at Bapaume, the patriots of the place, the National Guard on the road and the authorities, come in a body to honor the great man. The town of Arras is illuminated on his arrival. On the adjournment of the Constituent Assembly the people in the street greet him with shouts, crown him with oak wreaths, take the horses from his cab and drag him in triumph to the rue St. Honoré, where he lodges with the carpenter Duplay.--Here, in one of those families in which the semi-bourgeois class borders on the people, whose minds are unsophisticated, and on whom glittering generalities and oratorical tirades take full hold, he finds his worshippers; they drink in his words; they have the same opinion of him that he has of himself; to every person in the house, husband, wife and daughter, he is the great patriot, the infallible sage; he bestows benedictions night and morning; he inhales clouds of incense; he is a god at home. The faithful, to obtain access to him form a line in the court.[31111] One by one they are admitted into the reception room, where they gather around portraits of him drawn with pencil, in stump, in sepia and in water color, and before miniature busts in red or gray plaster. Then, on the signal being given by him, they penetrate through a glass door into the sanctuary where he presides, into the private closet in which the best bust of him, with verses and mottoes, replaces him during his absence.--His worshippers adore him on their knees, and the women more than the men. On the day he delivers his apology before the Convention "the passages are lined with women[31112].... seven or eight hundred of them in the galleries, and but two hundred men at most;" and how frantically they cheer him! He is a priest surrounded by devotees."[31113] In the Jacobin club, when he delivers his "amphigory," there are sobs of emotion, "outcries and stamping of feet almost making the house tumble."[31114] An onlooker who shows no emotion is greeted with murmurs and obliged to slip out, like a heretic that has strayed into a church on the elevation of the Host.--The faster the revolutionary thunderbolts fall on other heads, so does Robespierre mount higher and higher in glory and deification. Letters are addressed to him as "the founder of the Republic, the incorruptible genius who foresees all and saves all, who can neither be deceived nor seduced;"[31115] who has "the energy of a Spartan and the eloquence of an Athenian;"[31116] "who shields the Republic with the aegis of his eloquence;"[31117] who "illuminates the universe with his writings, fills the world with his renown and regenerates the human species here below;"[31118] whose" name is now, and will be, held in veneration for all ages, present and to come;"[31119] who is "the Messiah promised by the Eternal for universal reform."[31120] An extraordinary popularity," says Billaud-Varennes,[31121] a popularity which, founded under the Constituent Assembly, "only increased during the Legislative Assembly," and, later on, so much more, that, "in the National Convention he soon found himself the only one able to fix attention on his person.... and control public opinion.... With this ascendancy over public opinion, with this irresistible preponderance, when he reached the Committee of Public Safety, he was already the most important being in France." After three years, a chorus of a thousand voices,[31122] which he formed and directs, repeats again and again in unison his litany, his personal creed, a hymn of three stanzas composed by him in his own honor, and which he daily recites to himself in a low tone of voice, and often in a loud one:

"Robespierre alone has discovered the best type of citizen! Robespierre alone, modestly and without shortcomings, fits the description! Robespierre alone is worthy of and able to lead the Revolution!"[31123]

Cool infatuation carried thus far is equivalent to a raging fever, and Robespierre almost attains to the ideas and the ravings of Marat.

First, in his own eyes, he, like Marat, is a persecuted man, and, like Marat, he poses himself as a "martyr," but more skillfully and keeping within bounds, affecting the resigned and tender air of an innocent victim, who, offering himself as a sacrifice, ascends to Heaven, bequeathing to mankind the imperishable souvenir of his virtues.[31124]

"I arouse against me the pride of everybody;[31125] I sharpen against me a thousand daggers. I am a sacrifice to every species of hatred. ... It is certain that my head will atone for the truths I have uttered. I have given my life, and shall welcome death almost as a boon. It is, perhaps, Heaven's will that my blood should indicate the pathway of my country to happiness and freedom. With what joy I accept this glorious destiny!"[31126]--

"It is hardly in order to live that one declares war against tyrants, and, what is still more dangerous, against miscreants.... The greater their eagerness to put an end to my career here below, the more eager I shall be to fill it with actions serving the welfare of my fellow-creatures."[31127]

"All these offenders outrage me;[31128] actions which to others may appear insignificant or completely legitimate are for me crimes. As soon as someone becomes acquainted with me he is at once calumniated. Others are forgiven for their fortune, my zeal is considered a crime. Deprive me of my conscience and I am the most wretched of men. I do not even enjoy the rights of a citizen. I am not even allowed to perform my duty as a representative of the people.... To the enemies of my country, to whom my existence seems an obstacle to their heinous plots, I am ready to sacrifice it, if their odious empire is to endure..... Let their road to the scaffold be the pathway of crime, ours shall be that of virtue; let the hemlock be got ready for me, I await it on this hallowed spot. I shall at least bequeath to my country an example of constant affection for it, and to the enemies of humanity the disgrace of my death."

Naturally, and always just like Marat, he sees around himself only "the perverted, the plotters, the traitors."[31129]--Naturally, as with Marat, common sense with him is perverted, and, like Marat again, he thinks at random.

"I am not obliged to reflect," said he to Garat, "I always rely on first impressions."

"For him," says the same authority, "the best reasons are suspicions,"[31130] and naught makes headway against suspicions, not even the most positive evidence. On September 4, 1792, talking confidentially with Pétion, and hard pressed with the questions that he put to him, he ends by saying, "Very well, I think that Brissot is on Brunswick's side."[31131]--Naturally, finally, he, like Marat, imagines the darkest fictions, but they are less improvised, less grossly absurd, more slowly worked out and more industriously interwoven in his calculating inquisitorial brain.

"Evidently," he says to Garat, "the Girondists are conspiring."[31132]

"And where?" demands Garat.

"Everywhere," Robespierre replies, "in Paris, throughout France, over all Europe. Gensonné, at Paris, is plotting in the Faubourg St. Antoine, going about among the shopkeepers and persuading them that we patriots mean to pillage their shops. The Gironde (department) has for a long time been plotting its separation from France so as to join England; the chiefs of its deputation are at the head of the plot, and mean to carry it out at any cost. Gensonné makes no secret of it; he tells all among them who will listen to him that they are not representatives of the nation, but plenipotentiaries of the Gironde. Brissot is plotting in his journal, which is simply a tocsin of civil war; we know of his going to England, and why he went; we know all about his intimacy with that Lebrun, minister of foreign affairs, a Liegois and creature of the Austrian house. Brissot's best friend is Clavière, and Clavière has plotted wherever he could breathe. Rabaut, treacherous like the Protestant and philosopher that he is, was not clever enough to conceal his correspondence with that courtier and traitor Montesquiou; six months ago they were working together to open Savoy and France to the Piedmontese. Servan was made general of the Pyrenean army only to give the keys of France to the Spaniards."

"Is there no doubt of this in your mind?" asks Garat.

"None, whatever."[31133]

Such assurance, equal to that of Marat, is terrible and worse in its effect, for Robespierre's list of conspirators is longer than that of Marat. Political and social, in Marat's mind, the list comprehends only aristocrats and the rich; theological and moral in Robespierre's mind, it comprehends all atheists and dishonest persons, that is to say, nearly the whole of his party. In this narrow mind, given up to abstractions and habitually classifying men under two opposite headings, whoever is not with him on the good side is against him on the bad side, and, on the bad side, the common understanding between the factious of every flag and the rogues of every degree, is natural.

"All aristocrats are corrupt, and every corrupt man is an aristocrat;" for, "republican government and public morality are one and the same thing."[31134]

Not only do evil-doers of both species tend through instinct and interest to league together, but their league is already perfected. One has only to open one's eyes to detect "in all its extent" the plot they have hatched, "the frightful system of destruction of public morality."[31135] Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Danton, Hébert, "all of them artificial characters," had no other end in view: "they felt[31136] that, to destroy liberty, it was necessary to favor by every means whatever tended to justify egoism, wither the heart and efface that idea of moral beauty, which affords the only rule for public reason in its judgment of the defenders and enemies of humanity."--Their heirs remain; but let those be careful. Immorality is a political offense; one conspires against the State merely by making a parade of materialism or by preaching indulgence, by acting scandalously, or by following evil courses, by stock-jobbing, by dining too sumptuously; by being vicious, scheming, given to exaggeration, or "on the fence;" by exciting or perverting the people, by deceiving the people, by finding fault with the people, by distrusting the people,[31137] short, when one does not march straight along on the prescribed path marked out by Robespierre according to principles: whoever stumbles or turns aside is a scoundrel, a traitor. Now, not counting the Royalists, Feuillantists, Girondists, Hébertists, Dantonists, and others already decapitated or imprisoned according to their merit, how many traitors still remain in the Convention, on the Committees, amongst the representatives on mission, in the administrative bodies not properly weeded out, amongst petty tyrannical underlings and the entire ruling, influential class at Paris and in the provinces? Outside of "about twenty political Trappists in the Convention," outside of a small devoted group of pure Jacobins in Paris, outside of a faithful few scattered among the popular clubs of the departments, how many Fouchés, Vadiers, Talliens, Bourdons, Collots, remain amongst the so-called revolutionaries? How many dissidents are there, disguised as orthodox, charlatans disguised as patriots, and pashas disguised as sans-culottes?[31138] Add all this vermin to that which Marat seeks to crush out; it is no longer by hundreds of thousands, but by millions, exclaim Baudot, Jeanbon-Saint-André and Guffroy, that the guilty must be counted and cut off their heads!--And all these heads, Robespierre, according to his maxims, must strike off. He is well aware of this; hostile as his intellect may be to precise ideas, he, when alone in his closet, face to face with himself, sees clearly, as clearly as Marat. Marat's chimera, on first spreading out its wings, bore its frenzied rider swiftly onward to the charnel house; that of Robespierre, fluttering and hobbling along, reaches the goal in its turn; in its turn, it demands something to feed on, and the rhetorician, the professor of principles, begins to assess the voracity of the monstrous brute on which he is mounted. Slower than the other, this one is still more ravenous, for, with similar claws and teeth, it has a vaster appetite. At the end of three years Robespierre has overtaken Marat, at that distant end of the line, at the station where Marat had established himself from the very beginning, and the theoretician now adopts the policy, the aim, the means, the work, and almost the vocabulary of a maniac:[31139]

armed dictatorship of the urban mob,
systematic perturbation of the bribed rabble,
war against the bourgeoisie,
extermination of the rich,

placing opposition writers, administrators and deputies outside the law.

Both monsters get the same food; only, to the ration of his monster, Robespierre adds "vicious men" as its special and favorite prey. Henceforth, he may in vain abstain from action, take refuge in his rhetoric, stop his chaste ears, and raise his hypocritical eyes to heaven, he cannot avoid seeing or hearing under his immaculate feet the streaming gore, and the bones crashing in the open jaws of the insatiable monster which he has fashioned and on which he rides.[31140] These ever open and hungry jaws must be daily fed with an ampler supply of human flesh; not only is he bound to let it eat, but to furnish the food, often with his own hands, except that he must afterwards wash them, declaring, and even believing, that no spot of blood has ever soiled them. He is generally content to caress and flatter the brute, to excuse it, to let it go on. Nevertheless, more than once, tempted by the opportunity, he has launched it against his designated victim.[31141] He is now himself starting off in quest of living prey; he casts the net of his rhetoric[31142] around it; he fetches it bound to the open jaws; he thrusts aside with an uncompromising air the arms of friends, wives and mothers, the outstretched hands of suppliants begging for lives;[31143] he suddenly throttles the struggling victims[31144] and, for fear that they might escape, he strangles them in time. Near the end, this is no longer enough; the brute must have grander quarries, and, accordingly, a pack of hounds, beaters-up, and, willingly or not, it is Robespierre who equips, directs and urges them on, at Orange, at Paris,[31145] ordering them to empty the prison's, and be expeditious in doing their work.--In this profession of slaughtering, destructive instincts, long repressed by civilization, become aroused. His feline physiognomy, at first "that of a domestic cat, restless but mild, changes into the savage appearance of the wildcat, and close to the ferocious exterior of the tiger. In the Constituent Assembly he speaks with a whine, in the Convention he froths at the mouth."[31146] The monotonous drone of a stiff sub-professor changes into the personal accent of furious passion; he hisses and grinds his teeth;[31147] Sometimes, on a change of scene, he affects to shed tears.[31148] But his wildest outbursts are less alarming than his affected sensibility. The festering grudges, corrosive envies and bitter scheming which have accumulated in his breast are astonishing. The gall bladder is full, and the extravasated gall overflows on the dead. He never tires of re-executing his guillotined adversaries, the Girondists, Chaumette, Hébert and especially Danton,[31149] probably because Danton was the active agent in the Revolution of which he was simply the incapable pedagogue; he vents his posthumous hatred on this still warm corpse in artful insinuations and obvious misrepresentations. Thus, inwardly corroded by the venom it distills, his physical machine gets out of order, like that of Marat, but with other symptoms. When speaking in the tribune "his hands crisp with a sort of nervous contraction;" sudden tremors agitate "his shoulders and neck, shaking him convulsively to and fro."[31150] "His bilious complexion becomes livid," his eyelids quiver under his spectacles, and how he looks! "Ah," said a Montagnard, "you would have voted as we did on the 9th of Thermidor, had you seen his green eyeballs!" "Physically as well as morally," he becomes a second Marat, suffering all the more because his delirium is not steady, and because his policy, being a moral one, forces him to exterminate on a grander scale.

But he is a discreet Marat, of a timid temperament, anxious,[31151] keeping his thoughts to himself, made for a school-master or a pleader, but not for taking the lead or for governing, always acting hesitatingly, and ambitious to be rather the pope, than the dictator of the Revolution.[31152] Above all, he wants to remain a political Grandison[31153]; until the very end, he keeps his mask, not only in public but also to himself and in his inmost conscience. The mask, indeed, has adhered to his skin; he can no longer distinguish one from the other; never did an impostor more carefully conceal intentions and acts under sophisms, and persuade himself that the mask was his face, and that in telling a lie, he told the truth.

Taking his word for it, he had nothing to do with the September events.[31154] "Previous to these events, he had ceased to attend the General Council of the Commune... He no longer went there." He was not charged with any duty, he had no influence there; he had not provoked the arrest and murder of the Girondists.[31155] All he did was to "speak frankly concerning certain members of the Committee of Twenty-one;" as "a magistrate" and "one of a municipal assembly." Should he not" explain himself freely on the authors of a dangerous plot?" Besides, the Commune "far from provoking the 2nd of September did all in its power to prevent it." After all, only one innocent person perished, "which is undoubtedly one too many. Citizens, mourn over this cruel mistake; we too have long mourned over it! But, as all things human come to an end, let your tears cease to flow." When the sovereign people resumes its delegated power and exercises its inalienable rights, we have only to bow our heads.--Moreover, it is just, wise and good "in all that it undertakes, all is virtue and truth; nothing can be excess, error or crime."[31156] It must intervene when its true representatives are hampered by the law "let it assemble in its sections and compel the arrest of faithless deputies."[31157] What is more legal than such a motion, which is the only part Robespierre took on the 31st of May. He is too scrupulous to commit or prescribe an illegal act. That will do for the Dantons, the Marats, men of relaxed morals or excited brains, who if need be, tramp in the gutters and roll up their shirt-sleeves; as to himself, he can do nothing that would ostensibly derange or soil the dress proper to an honest man and irreproachable citizen. In the Committee of Public Safety, he merely executes the decrees of the Convention, and the Convention is always free. He a dictator! He is merely one of seven hundred deputies, and his authority, if he has any, is simply the legitimate ascendancy of reason and virtue.[31158] He a murderer! If he has denounced conspirators, it is the Convention which summons these before the revolutionary Tribunal,[31159] and the revolutionary Tribunal pronounces judgment on them. He a terrorist! He merely seeks to simplify the established proceedings, so as to secure a speedier release of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and the final purgation that is to render liberty and morals the order of the day.[31160]--Before uttering all this he almost believes it, and, when he has uttered it he believes it fully.[31161] When nature and history combine, to produce a character, they succeed better than man's imagination. Neither Molière in his "Tartuffe," nor Shakespeare in his "Richard III.," dared bring on the stage a hypocrite believing himself sincere, and a Cain that regarded himself as an Abel.[31162] There he stands on a colossal stage, in the presence of a hundred thousand spectators, on the 8th of June, 1794, the most glorious day of his life, at that fête in honor of the Supreme Being, which is the glorious triumph of his doctrine and the official consecration of his papacy. Two characters are found in Robespierre, as in the Revolution which he represents: one, apparent, paraded, external, and the other hidden, dissembled, inward, the latter being overlaid by the former.--The first one all for show, fashioned out of purely cerebral cogitations, is as artificial as the solemn farce going on around him. According to David's programme, the cavalcade of supernumeraries who file in front of an allegorical mountain, gesticulate and shout at the command, and under the eyes, of Henriot and his gendarmes,[31163] manifesting at the appointed time the emotions which are prescribed for them. At five o'clock in the morning

"friends, husbands, wives, relations and children will embrace.... The old man, his eyes streaming with tears of joy, feels himself rejuvenated."

At two o'clock, on the turf-laid terraces of the sacred mountain,

"all will show a state of commotion and excitement: mothers here press to their bosoms the infants they suckle, and there offer them up in homage to the author of Nature, while youths, aglow with the ardor of battle, simultaneously draw their swords and hand them to their venerable fathers. Sharing in the enthusiasm of their sons, the deported old men embrace them and bestow on them the paternal benediction..... All the men distributed around the 'Field of Reunion' sing in chorus the (first) refrain.... All the Women distributed around the 'Field of Reunion' sing in unison the (second) refrain.... All Frenchmen partake of each other's sentiments in one grand fraternal embrace."

What could better than such an idyll, ruled with an iron hand, in the presence of moral symbols and colored pasteboard divinities, could better please the counterfeit moralist, unable to distinguish the false from the true, and whose skin-deep sensibility is borrowed from sentimental authors! "For the first time" his glowing countenance beams with joy, while "the enthusiasm"[31164] of the scribe overflows, as usual, in book phraseology.

"Behold!" he exclaims, "that which is most interesting in humanity! The Universe is here assembled! O, Nature, how sublime, how exquisite is thy power! How tyrants must quail at the contemplation of this festival!"

Is not he himself its most dazzling ornament? Was not he unanimously chosen to preside over the Convention and conduct the ceremonies? Is he not the founder of the new cult, the only pure worship on the face of the earth, approved of by morality and reason? Wearing the uniform of a representative, nankeen breeches, blue coat, tri-colored sash and plumed hat,[31165] holding in his hand a bouquet of flowers and grain, he marches at the head of the Convention and officiates on the platform; he sets fire to the veil which hides from view the idol representing "Atheism," and suddenly, through an ingenious contrivance, the majestic statue of "Wisdom" appears in its place. He then addresses the crowd, over and over again, exhorting, apostrophizing, preaching, elevating his soul to the Supreme Being, and with what oratorical combinations! What an academic swell of bombastic cadences, strung together to enforce his tirades! How cunning the even balance of adjective and substantive![31166] From these faded rhetorical flowers, arranged as if for a prize distribution or a funeral oration, exhales a sanctimonious, collegiate odor which he complacently breathes, and which intoxicates him. At this moment, he must certainly be in earnest; there is no hesitation or reserve in his self-admiration; he is not only in his own eyes a great writer and great orator, but a great statesman and great citizen his artificial, philosophic conscience awards him only praise.--But look underneath, or rather wait a moment. Signs of impatience and antipathy appear behind his back: Lecointre has braved him openly; numerous insults, and, worse than these, sarcasms, reach his ears. On such an occasion, and in such a place! Against the pontiff of Truth, the apostle of Virtue! The miscreants, how dare they! Silent and pale, he suppresses his rage, and,[31167] losing his balance, closing his eyes, he plunges headlong on the path of murder: cost what it will, the miscreants must perish and without loss of time. To expedite matters, he must get their heads off quietly, and as "up to this time things have been managed confidentially in the Committee of Public Safety," he, alone with Couthon, two days after, without informing his colleagues,[31168] draws up, brings to the Convention, and has passed the terrible act of Prairial which places everybody's life at his disposal.--In his crafty, blundering haste, he has demanded too much; each one, on reflection, becomes alarmed for himself; he is compelled to back out, to protest that he is misunderstood, admit that representatives are excepted, and, accordingly, to sheathe the knife he has already applied to his adversaries throats. But he still holds it in his grasp. He watches them, and, pretending to retreat, affects a renunciation, crouched in his corner,[31169] waiting until they discredit themselves, so as to spring upon them a second time. He has not to wait long, for the exterminating machine he set up on the 22nd of Prairial, is in their hands, and it has to work as he planned it, namely, by making rapid turns and almost haphazard: the odium of a blind sweeping massacre rests with them; he not only makes no opposition to this, but, while pretending to abstain from it, he urges it on. Secluded in the private office of his secret police, he orders arrests;[31170] he sends out his principal bloodhound, Herman; he first signs and then dispatches the resolution by which it is supposed that there are conspirators among those in confinement and which, authorizing spies or paid informers, is to provide the guillotine with those vast batches which purge and clean prisons out in a trice."[31171]--"I am not responsible," he states later on...." My lack of power to do any good, to arrest the evil, forced me for more than six weeks to abandon my post on the Committee of Public Safety."[31172] To ruin his adversaries by murders committed by him, by those which he makes them commit and which he imputes to them, to whitewash himself and blacken them with the same stroke of the brush, what intense delight! If the natural conscience murmurs in whispers at moments, the acquired superposed conscience immediately imposes silence, concealing personal hatreds under public pretexts: the guillotined, after all, were aristocrats, and whoever comes under the guillotine is immoral. Thus, the means are good and the end better; in employing the means, as well as in pursuing the end, the function is sacerdotal.

Such is the scenic exterior of the Revolution, a specious mask with a hideous visage beneath it, under the reign of a nominal humanitarian theory, covering over the effective dictatorship of evil and low passions. In its true representative, as in itself, we see ferocity issuing from philanthropy, and, from the pedant (cuistre), the executioner.

*****

[Footnote 3101: Harmand (de la Meuse): "Anecdotes relatives à la Revolution." "He was dressed like a tough cab-driver. He had a disturbed look and an eye always in motion; he acted in an abrupt, quick and jerky way. A constant restlessness gave a convulsive contraction to his muscles and features which likewise affected his manner of walking so that he didn't walk but hopped."]

[Footnote 3102: Chevremont, "Jean Paul Marat;" also Alfred Bougeard, "Marat" passim. These two works, with numerous documents, are panegyrics of Marat.--Bougeat, I., II (description of Marat by Fabre d'Eglantine); II., 259 and I., 83.--"Journal de la Republique Française," by Marat, No.93, January 9, 1793. "I devote only two out of the twenty four hours to sleep, and only one hour to my meals, toilette and domestic necessities... I have not taken fifteen minutes recreation for more than three years."]

[Footnote 3103: Chevremont, I., pp. I and 2. His family, on the father's side, was Spanish, long settled in Sardinia. The father, Dr. Jean Mara, had abandoned Catholicism and removed to Geneva where he married a woman of that city; he afterwards established himself in the canton of Neufchatel.]

[Footnote 3104: "Journal de la République Française" No.98, description of "l'Ami du peuple" by himself.]

[Footnote 3105: Read his novel "Les Aventures du jeune comte Potowski," letter 5, by Lucile: "I think of Potowski only. My imagination, inflamed at the torch of love, ever presents to me his sweet image." Letter of Potowski after his marriage. "Lucile now grants to love all that modesty permits... enjoying such transports of bliss, I believe that the gods are jealous of my lot."]

[Footnote 3106: Preface, XX. "Descartes, Helvetius, Haller, Lelat all ignored great principles; Man, with them, is an enigma, an impenetrable secret." He says in a foot-note, "We find evidence of this in the works of Hume, Voltaire, Bonnet, Racine and Pascal."]

[Footnote 3107: "Mémoires Académiques sur la Lumière," pref., VII.--He especially opposes "the differential refrangibility of heterogeneous rays" which is "the basis of Newton's theory."]

[Footnote 3108: Chevremont, I., 74. (See the testimony of Arago, Feb.24, 1844).]

[Footnote 3109: Ibid., I., 104. (Sketch of a declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen).]

[Footnote 3110: See the epigraph of his "Mémoires sur la Lumiere." "They will force their way against wind and tide."--Ibid., preface, VII. "Déconvertes de Monsieur Marat," 1780, 2nd ed., p. 140.]

[Footnote 3111: "Recherches physiques sur l'electricité," 1782, pp.13, 17.]

[Footnote 3112: Chevremont, I., 59.]

[Footnote 3113: "De l'Homme," preface VII. and book IV.]

[Footnote 3114: "Journal de la République Française," No 98.]

[Footnote 3115: "Journal de la République Française," by Marat, No. I.]

[Footnote 3116: "L'Ami du Peuple" No. 173. (July 26, 1790). The memories of conceited persons, given to immoderate self-expansion, are largely at fault. I have seen patients in asylums who, believing in their exalted position, have recounted their successes in about the same vein as Marat. (Chevremont, I., 40, 47, 54). "The reports of extraordinary cures effected by me brought me a great crowd of the sick. The street in front of my door was blocked with carriages. People came to consult me from all quarters.... The abstract of my experiments on Light finally appeared and it created a prodigious sensation throughout Europe; the newspapers were all filled with it. I had the court and the town in my house for six months.... The Academy, finding that it could not stifle my discoveries tried to make it appear that they had emanated from its body." Three academic bodies came in turn the same day to see if he would not present himself as a candidate.--"Up to the present time several crowned heads have sought me and always on account of the fame of my works."]

[Footnote 3117: "Journal de la République Française," July 6 1793.]

[Footnote 3118: Moniteur, (Session of the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668 and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]

[Footnote 3119: Moniteur, (Session of the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668 and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]

[Footnote 3120: Moniteur, (Session of the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668 and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]

[Footnote 3121: Chevremont, I., 40. (Marat's letters, 1793).]

[Footnote 3122: Journal de la Republique Française, No.98.]

[Footnote 3123: The words of Marat and Panes. (Chevremont, I., 197, 203; also "The Revolution" II., 290, 2nd note).]

[Footnote 3124: Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution," II., 89. (Narrated by M. Bourdier, Marat's physician, to M. Serre, the physiologist). Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 355, (after a visit to Marat): "You should see how superficially Marat composed his articles. Without any knowledge of a public man he would ask the first person he met what he thought of him and this he wrote down, exclaiming 'I'll crush the rascal!'"]

[Footnote 3125: Chevremont, I., 361. (From a pamphlet against Necker, by Marat, July, 1790).]

[Footnote 3126: "L'Ami du Peuple," No.552. (August 30, 1791).]

[Footnote 3127: Ibid., No.626. (Dec. 15, 1791). Cf. "The Revolution," II., 129, on the number of armed emigrés. At this date the authorized number as published is four thousand.]

[Footnote 3128: His filthy imputations cannot be quoted. See in Buchez et Roux, IX., 419 (April 26, 1791), and X., 220 (Nos. for June 17, 19 and 21), his statement against Lafayette; again, his list with its vile qualifications of "rascals and rogues," who are canvassing for election, and his letters on the Academicians.]

[Footnote 3129: Buchez et Roux, X., 407 (Sept., 1791).--Cf. ibid., 473. According to Marat, "it is useless to measure a degree of the meridian; the Egyptians having already given this measure. The Academicians obtained an appropriation of one thousand crowns for the expenses of this undertaking, a small cake which they have fraternally divided amongst themselves."]

[Footnote 3130: Chevremont, I., 238-249. "L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 419, 519, 543, 608, 641. Other falsehoods just as extravagant are nearly all grotesque. No.630, (April 15, 1792). "Simonneau, mayor of d'Etampes, is an infamous ministerial monopolizer."--No. 627, (April 12, 1792). Delessart, the minister, "accepts gold to let a got-up decree be passed against him." No. 650, (May 10, 1792). "Louis XVI. desired war only to establish his despotism on an indestructible foundation."]

[Footnote 3131: Chevremont, I., 106. (Draft of a declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, 1789).--Ibid., I., 196.]

[Footnote 3132: "L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 24 and 274.--Cf. "Placard de Marat," Sept. 18, 1792. "The National Convention should always be under the eye of the people, so that the people may stone it if it neglects its duty."]

[Footnote 3133: "L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 108-111. (May 20-23, 1790).]

[Footnote 3134: Ibid., No. 258. (Oct. 22, 1790).]

[Footnote 3135: Ibid., No. 286 (Nov. 20, 1790).]

[Footnote 3136: Ibid., No. 198 (August 22, 1790).]

[Footnote 3137: Ibid., Nos. 523 and 524 (July 19 and 20, 1791).]

[Footnote 3138: Ibid., No.626 (Dec. 15, 1791).]

[Footnote 3139: Ibid., No.668 (July 8, 1792).--Cf. No. 649 (May 6, 1792). He approves of the murder of General Dillon by his men, and recommends the troops everywhere to do the same thing.]

[Footnote 3140: Ibid., No.677 (August 10, 1792). See also subsequent numbers, especially No. 680, Aug. 19th, for hastening on the massacre of the Abbaye prisoners. And Aug. 21st: "As to the officers, they deserve to be quartered like Louis Capet and his manège toadies."]

[Footnote 3141: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 105. (Letter of Chevalier Saint-Dizier, member of the first committee of Surveillance, Sep.10, 1792.)--Michelet, II., 94. (In December, 1790, he already demands twenty thousand heads).]

[Footnote 3142: Moniteur, Oct. 26, 1792. (Session of the Convention, Oct. 24th.) "N--: I know a member of the convention, who heard Marat say that, to ensure public tranquility, two hundred and seventy thousand heads more should fall."

Vermont: "I declare that Marat made that
statement in my presence."]

Marat: "Well, I did say so; that's my
opinion and I say it again."--

Up to the last he advocates surgical operations. (No. for July 12, 1793, the eve of his death.) Observe what he says on the anti-revolutionaries. "To prevent them from entering into any new military body I had proposed at that time, as an indispensable prudent measure, cutting off their ears, or rather their thumbs." He likewise had his imitators. (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 186, Session of the Convention, April 4, 1796.) Deputies from the popular club of Cette "regret that they had not followed his advice and cut off three hundred thousand heads."]

[Footnote 3143: Danton never wrote or printed a speech. "I am no writer," he says. (Garat, Memoires, 31.)]

[Footnote 3144: Garat, "Memoires," III.: "Danton had given no serious study to those philosophers who, for a century past, had detected the principles of social art in human nature. He had not sought in his own organization for the vast and simple combinations which a great empire demands. He had that instinct for the grand which constitutes genius and that silent circumspection which constitutes judgment."]

[Footnote 3145: Garat, ibid., 311, 312.]

[Footnote 3146: The head of a State may be considered in the same light as the superintendent of an asylum for the sick, the demented and the infirm. In the government of his asylum he undoubtedly does well to consult the moralist and the physiologist; but, before following out their instructions he must remember that in his asylum its inmates, including the keepers and himself, are more or less ill, demented or infirm.]

[Footnote 3147: De Sybel: "Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Revolution Française," (Dosquet's translation from the German) II., 303. "It can now be stated that it was the active operations of Danton and the first committee of Public Safety which divided the coalition and gave the Republic the power of opposing Europe... We shall soon see, on the contrary, that the measures of the "Mountain" party, far from hastening the armaments, hindered them."]

[Footnote 3148: Ibid., I., 558, 562, 585. (The intermediaries were Westermann and Dumouriez.)]

[Footnote 3149: 2 Ibid., II., 28, 290, 291, 293.]

[Footnote 3150: Buchez et Roux, XXV., 445. (Session of April 13, 1793.)]

[Footnote 3151: According to a statement made by Count Theodore de Lameth, the eldest of the four brothers Lameth and a colonel and also deputy in the Legislative Assembly. During the Assembly he was well acquainted with Danton. After the September massacre he took refuge in Switzerland and was put on the list of emigrants. About a month before the King's death he was desirous of making a last effort and came to Paris. "I went straight to Danton's house, and, without giving my name, insisted on seeing him immediately. Finally, I was admitted and I found Danton in a bath-tub. "You here!" he exclaimed. "Do you know that I have only to say the word and send you to the guillotine?" "Danton," I replied, "you are a great criminal, but there are some vile things you cannot do, and one of them is to denounce me." "You come to save the King?" "Yes." We then began to talk in a friendly and confidential way. "I am willing," said Danton, "to try and save the King, but I must have a million to buy up the necessary votes and the money must be on hand in eight days. I warn you that although I may save his life I shall vote for his death; I am quite willing to save his head but not to lose mine." M. de Lameth set about raising the money; he saw the Spanish ambassador and had the matter broached to Pitt who refused. Danton, as he said he would, voted for the King's death, and then aided or allowed the return of M. de Lameth to Switzerland. (I have this account through M (probably Pasquier).... who had it from count Theodore de Lameth's own lips.)]

[Footnote 3152: Garat. "Memoires," 317. "Twenty times, he said to me one day, I offered them peace. They did not want it. They refused to believe me in order to reserve the right of ruining me."]

[Footnote 3153: Cf. the "Ancient Regime," p. 501.]

[Footnote 3154: "Danton," by Dr. Robinet, passim. (Notices by Béon, one of Danton's fellow-disciples.--Fragment by Saint-Albin.)--"The Revolution," II., p.35, foot-note.]

[Footnote 3155: Emile Bos, "Les Avocats du conseil du Roi," 515, 520. (See Danton's marriage-contract and the discussions about his fortune. From 1787 to 1791, he is found engaged as counsel only in three cases.)]

[Footnote 3156: Madame Roland, "Memoires." (Statement of Madame Danton to Madame Roland.)]

[Footnote 3157: Expressions used by Garat and Roederer.--Larévilliere-Lepaux calls him "the Cyclop."]

[Footnote 3158: Fauchet describes him as "the Pluto of Eloquence."]

[Footnote 3159: Riouffe, "Mémoires sur les prisons." "In prison every utterance was mingled with oaths and gross expressions."]

[Footnote 3160: Terms used by Fabre d'Eglantine and Garat.--Beugnot, a very good observer, had an accurate impression of Danton ("Mémoires", I, 249-252).--M. Dufort de Cheverney, (manuscript memoirs published by M. Robert de Crèveceur), after the execution of Babeuf, in 1797, had an opportunity to hear Samson, the executioner, talk with a war commissary, in an inn between Vendôme and Blois. Samson recounted the last moments of Danton and Fabre d'Églantine. Danton, on the way to the scaffold, asked if he might sing. "There is nothing to hinder," said Samson. "All right. Try to remember the verses I have just composed," and he sang the following to a tune in vogue:

Nous sommes menés au trépas We are led to our death
Par quantité de scélérats, by a gang of scoundrels
c'est ce qui nous désole. that makes us sad.
Mais bientot le moment viendra But soon the time shall come
Où chacun d'eux y passera, when all of them shall follow
c'est ce qui nous console." that's our consolation.]

[Footnote 3161: Buchez et Roux, XXI., 108. Speech (printed) by Pétion: "Marat embraced Danton and Danton embraced him. I certify that this took place in my presence."]

[Footnote 3162: Buchez et Roux, XXI., 126. ("To Maximilian Robespierre and his royalists," a pamphlet by Louvet.)--Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 250, "On arriving in Paris as deputy from my department (to the Legislative Assembly) Danton sought me and wanted me to join his party. I dined with him three times, in the Cour du Commerce, and always went away frightened at his plans and energy.... He contented himself by remarking to his friend Courtois and my colleague: 'Thy big Beugnot is nothing but a devotee--you can do nothing with him.'"]

[Footnote 3163: The Cordeliers district. (Buchez et Roux, IV., 27.) Assembly meeting of the Cordeliers district, November 11th, 1789, to sanction Danton's permanent presidency. He is always re-elected, and unanimously. This is the first sign of his ascendancy, although sometimes, to save the appearance of his dictatorship, he has his chief clerk Paré elected, whom he subsequently made minister.]

[Footnote 3164: Buchez et Roux, IV., 295, 298, 401; V., 140.]

[Footnote 3165: Ibid., VIII., 28 (October, 1790).]

[Footnote 3166: Ibid., IX., 408: X., 144, 234, 297, 417.--Lafayette "Mémoires," I., 359, 366. Immediately after Mirabeau's death (April, 1791) Danton's plans are apparent, and his initiative is of the highest importance.]

[Footnote 3167: "The Revolution," II., 238 (Note) and 283.--Garat, 309: "After the 20th of June everybody made mischief at the chateau; the power of which was daily increasing. Danton arranged the 10th of August and the chateau was thunderstruck."--Robinet: "Le Procès des Dantonistes," 224, 229. ("Journal de la Societé des amis de la Constitution," No. 214, June 5, 1792.) Danton proposes "the law of Valerius Publicola, passed in Rome after the expulsion of the Tarquins, permitting every citizen to kill any man convicted of having expressed opinions opposed to the law of the State, except in case of proof of the crime." (Ibid., Nos. 230 and 231, July 13, 1792.) Danton induces the federals present "to swear that they will not leave the capital until liberty is established, and before the will of the department is made known on the fate of the executive power." Such are the principles and the instruments, of "August 10th" and "September 2nd."]

[Footnote 3168: Garat, 314. "He was present for a moment on the committee of Public Safety. The outbreaks of May 31st and June 2nd occurred; he was the author of both these days."]

[Footnote 3169: Decrees of April 6 and 7, 1793.]

[Footnote 3170: Decree of September 5, 1793.]

[Footnote 3171: Decree of March 10, 1793.]

[Footnote 3172: August 1 and 12, 1793.]

[Footnote 3173: See "The Revolution," vol. III., ch. I.-Buchez et Roux, XXV., 285. (Meeting of Nov.26, 1793.)--Moniteur, XIX., 726. Danton (March 16, 1794) secures the passing of a decree that "hereafter prose only shall be heard at the rostrum of the house."]

[Footnote 3174: Archives Nationales, Papers of the committee of General Security, No 134.--Letter of Delacroix to Danton, Lille, March 25, 1793, on the situation in Belgium, and the retreat of Dumouriez.... "My letter is so long I fear that you will not read it to the end... .Oblige me by forgetting your usual indolence."--Letter of Chabot to Danton, Frimaire 12, year II. "I know your genius, my dear colleague, and consequently your natural indolent disposition. I was afraid that you would not read me through if I wrote a long letter. Nevertheless I rely on your friendship to make an exception in my favor."]

[Footnote 3175: Lagrange, the mathematician, and senator under the empire, was asked how it was that he voted for the terrible annual conscriptions. "It had no sensible effect on the tables of mortality," he replied.]

[Footnote 3176: Garat, 305, 310, 313. "His friends almost worshipped him."]

[Footnote 3177: Ibid., 317.--Thibeaudeau, "Mémoires," I., 59.]

[Footnote 3178: Quinet, "La Révolution," II., 304. (According to the unpublished memoirs of Baudot.) These expressions by Danton's friends all bear the mark of Danton himself. At all events they express exactly his ideas.]

[Footnote 3179: Riouffe, 67.]

[Footnote 3180: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I., 40, 42.--Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution Française," VI., 34; V. 178, 184. (On the second marriage of Danton in June, 1793, to a young girl of sixteen. On his journey to Arcis, March, 1794.)--Riouffe, 68. In prison "He talked constantly about trees, the country and nature."]

[Footnote 3181: We can trace the effect of his attitude on the public in the police reports, especially at the end of 1793, and beginning of the year 1794. (Archives Nationales, F 7, 31167 report of Charmont, Nivôse 6, year II.) "Robespierre gains singularly in public estimation, especially since his speech in the Convention, calling on his colleagues to rally and crush out the monsters in the interior, also in which he calls on all to support the new revolutionary government with their intelligence and talents.... I have to state that I have everywhere heard his name mentioned with admiration. They wound up by saying that it would be well for all members of the Convention to adopt the measures presented by Robespierre."--(Report of Robin, Nivôse 8.) "Citizen Robespierre is honored everywhere, in all groupes and in the cafe's. At the Café Manouri it was given out that his views of the government were the only ones which, like the magnet, would attract all citizens to the Revolution. It is not the same with citizen Billaud-Varennes." (Report of the Purveyor, Nivôse 9.) "In certain clubs and groups there is a rumor that Robespierre is to be appointed dictator..... The people do justice to his austere virtues; it is noticed that he has never changed his opinions since the Revolution began."]

[Footnote 3182: "Souvenirs d'un déporté." by P. Villiers, (Robespierre's secretary for seven months in 1790,) p. 2. "Of painstaking cleanliness."--Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 94. Description of Robespierre, published in the newspapers after his death: "His clothes were exquisitely clean and his hair always carefully brushed."]

[Footnote 3183: D'Hericault, "La Revolution du 9 Thermidor," (as stated by Daunou).--Meillan, "Mémoires," p.4. "His eloquence was nothing but diffusive declamation without order or method, and especially with no conclusions. Every time he spoke we were obliged to ask him what he was driving at..... Never did he propose any remedy. He left the task of finding expedients to others, and especially to Danton."]

[Footnote 3184: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 437, 438, 440, 442. (Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year II.)]

[Footnote 3185: Ibid., XXX., 225, 226, 227, 228 (Speech, Nov. 17, 1793), and XXXI., 255 (Speech, Jan.26, '794). "The policy of the London Cabinet largely contributed to the first movement of our Revolution.... Taking advantage of political tempests (the cabinet) aimed to effect in exhausted and dismembered France a change of dynasty and to place the Duke of York on the throne of Louis XVI.... Pitt....is an imbecile, whatever may be said of a reputation that has been much too greatly puffed up. A man who, abusing the influence acquired by him on an island placed haphazard in the ocean, is desirous of contending with the French people, could not have conceived of such an absurd plan elsewhere than in a madhouse."--Cf. Ibid., XXX., 465.]

[Footnote 3186: Ibid., XXVI., 433, 441, (Speech on the Constitution, May 10, 1793); XXXI., 275. "Goodness consists in the people preferring itself to what is not itself; the magistrate, to be good, must sacrifice himself to the people.".... "Let this maxim be first adopted that the people are good and that its delegates are corruptible.".. . XXX., 464. (Speech, Dec.25, 1793): "The virtues are the appanages of the unfortunate and the patrimony of the people."]

[Footnote 3187: Cf. passim, Hamel, "Histoire de Robespierre," 3 vols. An elaborate panegyric full of details. Although eighty years have elapsed, Robespierre still makes dupes of people through his attitudes and rhetorical flourishes. M. Hamel twice intimates his resemblance to Jesus Christ. The resemblance, indeed, is that of Pascal's Jesuits to the Jesus of the Gospel.]

[Footnote 3188: "The Ancient Regime," p.262.]

[Footnote 3189: Garat, "Mémoires," 84. Garat who is himself an ideologist, notes "his eternal twadle about the rights of man, the sovereignty of the people, and other principles which he was always talking about, and on which he never gave utterance to one precise or fresh idea."]

[Footnote 3190: Read especially his speech on the constitution, (May 10, 1793), his report on the principles of Republican Government, (Dec.15, 1793), his speech on the relationship between religious and national ideas and republican principles (May 7, 1794) and speech of Thermidor 8.-Carnot: "Memoires," II., 512. "In all deliberations on affairs he contributed nothing but vague generalities."]